Sharing the exchanges of people and places within our neighborhoods
In collaboration with Word Up Bookshop, a community hub in central Harlem, a team of five led an arts-based story-sharing exchange over a free lunch. Through a guided workshop, participants brought to the table personal histories, experiences of change, and ideas of belonging within one’s neighborhood through a creative art-making process. Afterward, we had a discussion reflecting on identity, urban imaginaries, and actionable reactions to problems and/or possibilities individuals saw within their neighborhoods.
Purpose: Encountering Community
Theme: Narrative of Place; Identity Shaping Culture of Place; and Planning to Stay
Outcome: Strangers meeting strangers; Building of new partnerships across neighborhoods in Brooklyn, Queens, and Upper Manhattan that allows for recognizing similarity within diversity; Strengthening of weak-ties across community; and finally, having residents think about a desirable future of their neighborhood in order to generate ideas about enhancing the present.